“It's Wrong to Exclude Girls From Something They Love.” Adolescents’ Attitudes About Sexism in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math
Author(s) -
Robnett Rachael D.,
John Jennifer E.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/cdev.13185
Subject(s) - psychology , latent class model , class (philosophy) , ethnically diverse , developmental psychology , value (mathematics) , social psychology , mathematics education , demography , population , mathematics , statistics , artificial intelligence , sociology , computer science
The current research examined adolescents’ attitudes about sexism in fields related to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). The ethnically diverse sample (61% East Asian) was composed of 629 adolescents ( M age = 16.09) who attended a public school in the United States. Participants responded to closed‐ and open‐ended questions about the prevalence and severity of sexism in STEM. We used latent profile analysis to classify participants into latent classes according to their responses. Of note, one latent class included participants who perceived sexism in STEM as a fairly common and very serious problem. Relative to the other classes, participants in this class were more likely to be girls and showed higher STEM value. Qualitative analyses illustrated that the participants in each class reasoned in fundamentally different ways about sexism in STEM.